Another movie about a dystopian future commenting on our own government? Was that the thought everyone had when they first read 1984? Bows and arrows, helmeted police in white uniforms and black boots, people with funny looking hair whispering words that sound much like words you hear on today's news. Couldn't be, of course. Certainly not here. We, the exceptional we.

Still, got to bed by ten with another two hours before I finally got into a deep sleep and still awoke a minute before the alarm was due to go off. A little slow getting up, yes, but headed out easily enough on an overcast morning to breakfast, another Latham Square “opening” ceremony of some kind scheduled for two this afternoon. I'll go and see what they're up to. It's close by and there's nothing else I'm aware of going on.

You don't sound very enthusiastic.

Oh, maybe. The attitude is decent enough and any old excuse to get me out the door with a camera. Not that I go anywhere without a camera. Anymore. In what is now well over a decade.

Later. Not much happening in Latham Square when I passed it on the bus, one or two people setting up a sound system, so I stayed on the bus and got off at the City Center where I had coffee and a bun out at a table. We're pretty predictable with our coffee and a bun out at a table.

A walk then to the square as it approached two, again three or four people still in the process of setting up a sound system, no one seemingly in a hurry, so I walked on up Broadway to the bank ATM and then returned, still nothing much happening. Hmm. Quickly crossed Broadway when I spotted a bus coming and rode to my morning café. Felt a bit foolish walking/stalking about with camera in hand waiting on something to happen and finally decided, if something was to going to happen, let it happen without me.

Lemonade and a raspberry/cheesy bun at the morning café, a walk back to the apartment to attempt a nap. Not a great day for sinuses. Maybe tomorrow will bode better at the Berkeley Sunday Streets. Maybe the sinuses will give up the battle. Maybe space aliens will arrive and effect a cure.

You've been making some weird typos while you've been writing this thing.

And when I go back and look for them I'll find some weird constructs and matching logic. Would have been nice if this afternoon had gone better.

Later still. Dave Eggers’ The Circle arrived earlier as I was heading down the stairs to catch the downtown bus and so I'll take a crack at it later in bed. I'd read a review this last week that caught my interest, the novel evidently an extrapolation of technology into a near future, the “Circle” another name for a Google or a Facebook or an Apple, a fantasy/prophesy on whatever road Eggers feels may lie ahead.

I'd wondered, in reading the review, what his take was on the one aspect they talked about, the explosion of technology and attitudes toward privacy and surveillance. A reference to wireless cameras you can attach anonymously to a wall like a piece of tape, essentially invisible, the idea of privacy kidnapped and then ground to dust. Well, you understand. A street photographer's curiosity.

A second dose of the pain meds. One thing about the pain meds, they do seem to work, so we'll see if this rocky day might morph into a feel better night.

Evening. Arne Dahl, part two of an episode that started last Saturday. Swedish and weird. It seems to have worked (for me, anyway). The time watching spent playing along on the guitar so we're up to speed for another day. Hey.

The sinuses are better. I've done this before, a second hit of the pain meds, and they've usually seemed to work. Unless they haven't and it's just the coincidence of the sinuses easing off on their own without the meds having had an effect. You hope that's the reason, the sinuses and not the meds.

The meds they have me on are supposedly lighter than any of the morphine based meds, but the list of side effects (including, for a very small number of people, dependence) makes you think. Makes me think. Still, the evening is going well. Won't complain.